Labour leader Joseph Muscat has called it the birth of a new "progressive" movement but right-wing parties also gained momentum in the European Parliament elections. In an island proud of its Christian roots, what values do the Maltese embrace? Christian Peregin put the question to opinion makers.
The EP election results reflected the "mood" of the people but not necessarily their values, according to Nationalist MP and lawyer Georg Sapiano.
He felt that people angry about immigration issues had voted for the most extreme candidate Norman Lowell but did not necessarily want the kind of government his party Imperium Europa offered.
He said several voters had used this election to "send a message" to the incumbent government, as they had done in 2004 and in various local council elections, but in the end they had consistently chosen the Nationalists to govern them.
Many of those who voted for the Green party Alternattiva Demokratika in 2004 felt comfortable moving to the Labour Party for various reasons, he believes.
Many were pro-EU Labourites who had felt uncomfortable voting Labour so soon after its anti-EU stance spearheaded by Alfred Sant.
And AD had done nothing to improve its image as a pressure group in the past five years. However, Labour may have managed to rebrand itself as "liberal enough and European enough" to be favoured.
But did this mean the PN should re-evaluate the traditional values it had promoted during the campaign?
"We do need to revise our stand on certain social issues, such as divorce and cohabitation rights, but I would hate for us to do that simply because of an election's results. We should do so out of conviction," he stressed.
On the other hand, former Labour general secretary Dominic Fenech felt these issues were not a determining factor in this election.
"I think the savage water and electricity bills the population has been served account more for the people's annoyance with the PN than any other single issue."
However, Labour should forget this election and proceed as if it never happened; he warned its new leader Joseph Muscat, who has been at the helm for exactly one year, against repeating the mistake of his predecessor Alfred Sant, by taking this as a popular affirmation of his leadership.
"There are four years until the real election, so don't repeat the mistake of imagining that the next one is yours by virtue of natural alternation, or by default."
On the other hand, Prime Minister and Nationalist Party leader Lawrence Gonzi should smile less and stop thinking he was the natural government of Malta, he added.
Prof. Fenech felt Mr Lowell's achievement was considerable but this did not mean the Maltese were losing their Catholic values.
"The voter who went for Mr Lowell is likely to be the type that believes our cultural make-up, including out Catholic national traditions, should be protected from the incursions of Africans," he explained.
Meanwhile, anthropologist Mark-Anthony Falzon, who was not surprised by Mr Lowell's result, said the ones to blame for such a result were the two big parties.
"Having skirted the issue for years, they suddenly decided immigration was our number one problem but failed to come up with tangible solutions to the problem they so blew up.
"They ended up playing into the hands of Lowell, who also managed to make our other politicians look soft. The lesson is that xenophobia is a Frankenstein which invariably ends up a threat to its own maker," he said.
Dr Falzon said AD's "disaster" was its own doing, because it fed on the failings of others and used a negative and sanctimonious strategy which had begun to irritate people.
"I also think (AD chairman) Arnold Cassola's adventure in Italy made him unelectable and he has now become a liability to the party."
He added that each party's policies may have had nothing to do with the result. Interestingly, the elected candidates were those who were "anointed" by the parties - the ones the party wanted to elect.
But all this has precious little to do with 2013.
He felt the result could actually benefit the PN, in the sense that people voted for a sort of "balance of power", voting Labour in the local council and EP elections, and PN in the general election.
"Irrespective of what Joseph Muscat says, Labour is still low on electability.
"Victory by default did not happen in 2008, nor will it happen in 2013. I have yet to see evidence of a strong pro-Labour shift among university students, for example, or young middle-class types.
"On its part, the PN will now probably be very concerned to curry favour, which is not necessarily good for the country. I dread to think what may happen to the planning regulations, for example."
The Metropolitan Chapter canon Mgr Anton Gouder refused to comment about the result of the election, even though the three bishops had instructed believers to choose candidates who held important values at heart.
When contacted yesterday to see if this message had been heeded, Mgr Gouder would only say "no comment".
However, the Church's media guru Fr Joe Borg said the message of the bishops was given very poor coverage by the media.
"Most people I spoke to did not even know there was such a message. People could not consider, obey or disobey what they were not properly informed about," was his curt reply.
cperegin@timesofmalta.com